Here's my idea....

[outrunner]

12 team playoff that keeps the major bowls intact. All major conference champions (ACC, Big East, Big 10, Big XII, Pac 10, SEC) get an automatic bid. The computer poll then seeds the teams. So the minor conferences would have to earn it still, much like Boise St. had to. So this is a compromise between the two formats. The other bowls could still be played as minor games, much like the NIT of basketball.

Above is how it would look this season.

*The four major bowls would be on a rotating schedule (next year Fiesta Bowl and Orange Bowl are semi-final)

*The National Championship game will still rotate between the 4 major bowls, but a semi-final bowl cannot have the National Championship

[gobulls83]

Calling something the Orange Bowl, for example, doesn't make it the Orange Bowl. Under your suggestion, the bowls no longer exist. If they don't get to invite their teams or have some say in the matchup, it's not a bowl game. I can host a pickup game in my backyard tomorrow and call it the Fiesta Bowl; the Fiesta Bowl will never, in fact, be played in my backyard, though.

This isn't to say your idea is a bad one - it is, just for other reasons - but rather to say that your argument that this combines the two concepts in fact is plainly false.

[Kizarvexis]

What would make any fan spend money to go to the Orange, Gator, Cotton or Fiesta Bowls when their team could be going to the Rose or Sugar Bowls? If you went to one of the earlier games, you might not be able to afford to go to a later game. Fans going to an early bowl would not stay the week (or a few days), but would just show for the game to save money. This would hurt the bowl game for money. I don't think a bowl/playoff would work. You need to have one or the other. And a knock against a playoff is the same thing about travelling to multiple playoff games during the busiest travel time of the year.

That said, I think a playoff system (however unlikely it is to come about) needs 32 teams to get a wide spectrum of teams into the mix. And it only adds one week over a 16 team playoff. Then you could invite all 11 conference champs and 21 at large teams. This would mean the BCS conferences could get 3-4 teams into the playoff making them happy while still having room for independents and non-bcs teams.

Kizarvexis

BTW, the D-III playoff is a 32 team field.

[BDYZR]

Great idea! Although I agree partly with gobulls83, it all boils down to MONEY, ours and theirs. The bowls and the cities won't give up their cut for a playoff system.

I don't think there would be any problem selling the games after the first two rounds.